Work Text:
“Be with me always — take any form — drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!”
— Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
Sometimes Eddie will wake in the middle of the night, jolted out of the deepest of dreams into wakefulness, and he won’t know where he is. His heart’ll be thundering in his ears, his palms will be clammy, his fingers tingling, and he won’t know where he is. He’ll look over to the still-sleeping figure beside him and for a moment he’ll be lost.
Marisol? The name will flicker to the forefront of his mind and he’ll bat it away like an annoyingly persistent gnat. Marisol hasn’t been speaking to him much lately since he dipped out on their last three planned date nights.
Shannon? He’ll linger on this one. This feels right. Shannon feels right.
But it’s not her—it can never be Shannon. Never again. His mind rebels against this truth. Forces it back into the dusty attic of his mind and boards up the door.
Eddie will reach out and slide a palm over her bare shoulder, fingertips brushing the ends of her blond-streaked hair.
“Shannon,” he’ll say anyway, just to see if it rouses her from her deep, deep sleep.
She won’t stir, but he’ll feel her back rising evenly with every breath and relief—relief? why is he so relieved she's still breathing?—will flood his bloodstream.
Eddie will settle along her side and pull her into him by the hips. Her bare foot will rub against his shin and he’ll try to roll closer to her—into her—without sending her toppling off the bed and to the floor. He’ll lock his arms tight around her, intent on never letting her go.
The woman—Marisol, no, Shannon, no, Kim, yes, yes, that’s it—will fall into him and her head will loll onto his shoulder and he’ll catch a fragrant whiff of her blond hair.
“I love you,” he’ll mumble against her slack cheek, to another woman, long dead.